JEDDAH, 17 July 2007 — Rizana Nafeek, the Sri Lankan maid found guilty a month ago of murdering an infant that was in her care, filed an appeal to the ruling a day before the deadline after the Sri Lankan Embassy stepped into retain legal representation on behalf of the young woman, who faces the prospect of being beheaded publicly for the alleged murder.
She was found guilty by a panel of three Shariah judges on June 16 without legal representation, which is not required under Shariah law.
“We respect the laws of the host country and accordingly we have been following the legal procedures to save this girl from the gallows,” said Lankan Deputy Foreign Minister Hussein Bhaila by telephone from Colombo.
According to Sri Lankan Ambassador to Saudi Arabia A.M.J. Sadiq, an attorney from the law firm of Kateb Fahad Al-Shammari has been retained by the embassy to represent the case. The lawyers are filing the appeal and claiming that the case is accidental death, which would take execution off the table and leave the penalty a matter of paying blood money.
The lawyer was permitted by prison authorities on Saturday to visit the Dawadami jailhouse and meet with Nafeek for the purpose of escorting her to a notary public in order to acquire a power of attorney. The appeal was won on Sunday, a day before the deadline to appeal. Had the deadline been broken, Nafeek would have faced the imminent prospect of public beheading.
The case against Nafeek has been complicated by the allegation that she was provided forged documents in Sri Lanka that puts her current age at 25. The date of birth on Rafeek’s Lankan birth certificate allegedly has her born in 1988, which would have made her 17 at the time she clams the infant child she was assigned to care for accidentally choked while she was feeding it in May 2005.
At the time the incident took place, Nafeek had been at her new job for two weeks. The parents of the dead child claim that Nafeek strangled the child to death.
“We will also try other avenues to save Rizana’s life by appealing for pardon on humanitarian grounds,” said Bhaila, referring to an appeal for clemency by the child’s family. (Under Shariah law the family can forfeit their private right to see justice by the sword, usually in exchange for blood money.)
After the judges found the housemaid guilty, Naif Jiziyan Khalafal Otaibi, the father of the child and Nafeek’s Saudi sponsor, refused to give up his private right to see Nafeek executed.
Sadiq says that the Lankan Embassy has been monitoring the development of the case since the alleged murder occurred in May 2005. “It’s due to our provision of the necessary consular assistance to Rizana from the outset and our vigilant monitoring of the case that has made the timely filing of the judicial appeal against the death sentence possible,” he said.
Nafeek, who is from a war-torn, impoverished Sri Lankan village and has a ninth-grade education, reportedly arrived in the Kingdom on an altered passport obtained by the employee recruitment office in Sri Lanka. Despite having no previous training in childcare, Rizana (with the Saudi family under the impression she was 23, not 17) was assigned the duty of bottle-feeding the infant.
According to Nafeek she was left alone to feed the child when the boy began to choke. Panicked she says that she began to shout for help. By the time the mother arrived, the infant had expired. The Otaibis accused Nafeek of strangling the child to death and she was turned over to the police of Dawdami, about 380 km outside of Riyadh. According to Saudi authorities, Nafeek withdraw her confession saying she had no translators at the police station, no legal assistance, was under duress and may not have completely understood what she was signing.
Meanwhile, a group of Sri Lankan expatriate wives in Riyadh is planning to meet the mother of the infant to plead for clemency on behalf of Rizana.
“We would like to make a humble appeal on behalf of Rizana who had struck this tragedy hardly after a month’s stay in the Kingdom,” a member of the group said.
The Asian Human Rights Commission said in a statement yesterday that Nafeek’s legal representatives would also prepare appeals to clemency to the infant’s family and to Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques. The embassy has assigned Mohammed Niyas, an embassy staff member, to look after Rizana’s interests as a representative of the Sri Lankan government.
AHRC Executive Director Basil Fernando had earlier publicly condemned the Sri Lankan government for not undertaking the legal costs of the appeal. Fernando said the AHRC footed the first payment of SR50,000 to the law firm Kateb Fahad Al-Shammari. The firm is currently waiting for documents related to the case to be released by the Interior Ministry, after which the lawyers are asking for a second SR50,000 payment. The total lawyer’s fee for the appeal will be SR150,000. The AHRC said two Sri Lankan workers donated $2,500 (SR9,375) and the Netherlands-based Nona Foundation had given $5,400 (SR20,250).
